Tag Archives: scam

A woman has been arrested and indicted after running a long-time scheme to steal from Queens residents, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday.

Sonia Vertucci, 42, of New Rochelle has been charged with scheme to defraud, grand larceny and petit larceny after failing to deliver on promises she gave predominantly to immigrant clients, according to officials.

The attorney’s general’s investigation revealed that Vertucci, who recently moved from Queens, collected $38,000 in upfront cash payments for services she did not deliver on between 2012 and 2013. Some of Vertucci’s services included providing Social Security cards and obtaining legal residency status for immigrants, and clearing tickets and license suspensions for truck drivers to help them return to work.

“Scam artists who prey on immigrants, or other hardworking New Yorkers, with false promises will not be tolerated in our state,” Schneiderman said. “No matter how elaborate their schemes, those who defraud New Yorkers will face justice.”

If convicted, Vertucci faces up to seven years or more in prison.

Anyone who believes they have been a victim of Vertucci should call the attorney general’s immigration fraud hotline at 1-866-390-2992.

In the scam, victims are contacted by a caller who claims to be from a utility company or the IRS and states that money is past due. The caller then informs the victim that they can avoid having their utilities disconnected or being arrested or deported by making an immediate payment.

The caller tells the victim to go to a store and purchase a Green Dot MoneyPak Card and place a certain amount of cash on the card.

The victim is instructed to call back with the card in hand, scratch off the back of the card and read the serial number to the perpetrator. The scammer then drains the funds from the card.

Scammers may also claim that a relative or friend has been in an accident and that an immediate payment is required or that a relative or friend has been arrested and needs bail money.

Green Dot MoneyPak cards themselves are legitimate products; consumers can use them to reload other prepaid cards, add money to a PayPal account without using a bank account or make same-day payments to major companies.

These scammers are instructing victims to use MoneyPak cards because, unlike in scams involving wiring money, scammers do not need to show up at an office to claim the funds.

Utility companies and government agencies will not contact anyone demanding immediate payment by Green Dot MoneyPak, according to police. People should be suspicious of callers who demand immediate payment for any reason.

The NYPD is asking anyone with information about this scam to call 1-800-577-TIPS.

A man has duped two dozen elderly victims from across the city out of large amounts of money using a scam where he impersonates a police officer, cops said.

The suspect targeted the victims, ranging in age from 73 to 93 years old, between June 2011 and late November, the NYPD said.

All of the victims, except one, have been women and are from Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.

The suspect calls the victims claiming to be a cop involved in an investigation dealing with the victims’ bank accounts, police said. He then says he needs money from the accounts to “assist in the investigation.” The victims then meet the suspect and hand over the cash, according to police.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or can text their tips to CRIMES (274637), then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.

Relief has been slowly trickling in for a handful of the hundreds scammed two months ago by an authorized Queens T-Mobile dealer, but deceived victims say they’ll never gain back their wasted time, stolen money and lost trust.

“It was a huge loss. I don’t have words to describe that,” said Dr. Srijan Kumar Bera, 34, of Kew Gardens. “I couldn’t sleep well because of this.”

Bera is one of at least 300 Queens customers who say they were cheated by a T-Mobile preferred retailer — a South Asian man they identified as Raj, who owned two Queens stores, at 138-40A 84th Drive in Briarwood and 134-11 Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park.

Both stores have been shuttered since the end of July and the owner and his employees, victims said, have fled, as the Courier reported in an August 2 cover story.

Bera said the devious dealer, who owns and operates a company called Jagdeep Global Products, Inc., billed him for five unauthorized lines tacked on to his account without permission, having already pocketed $200 in direct cash payments, before bolting.

He was left with $1,200 in charges from T-Mobile thanks to the five lines he said he never used, as well as disconnected service.

A spokesperson for T-Mobile had confirmed the fraudulent activity committed by the store owner and said the company apologizes and is taking “fast action” to correct the issues.

“We have worked together with the wholesaler responsible for the store and the owner has been replaced,” the spokesperson said, adding that those negatively affected should call customer service.

But duped customers said service representatives gave them the cold shoulder, saying the gripes they had were between themselves and the dealer and not the company.

“T-Mobile was not willing to take the blame on themselves,” Bera said. “They kept saying it’s between me and the dealer, but the dealer was using the company’s banner to give us the deals. That was where I felt really hopeless.”

Bera said he went to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) after calling T-Mobile’s Risk Assessment department every night, and writing several letters, to no avail. He said intervention by the BBB and the threat of hiring a lawyer helped speed up the process.

T-Mobile reps then waived $1,000 in termination fees and another $800 from the total bill.

Taliff Mohammed, 44, of Ozone Park — who was billed $1,271.92 in payments after also being signed up for five contracted lines instead of the three prepaid ones he wanted — said charges against him were dropped as well.

“It took some time, but they adjusted everything so I owe them no money,” he said. “It was unfortunate that I was taken advantage of but the big picture is that I wasn’t held responsible for that amount of money.”

Hero construction worker hellbent on catching Empire State Building shooter

The hero hardhat credited with helping cops track down a murderous gunman outside the Empire State Building says he was hellbent on catching the killer. NYDailyNews

Empire State Building shooting victim planned to marry long-time girlfriend

They were soulmates from the start. Steven Ercolino knew instantly that Bronx-born beauty Ivette Rivera was the one who would share his life, walk down the aisle with him, grow old beside him. “They always wanted to get married,” his brother Paul said wistfully Saturday at the family home in Warwick, Orange County. “He didn’t have a ring, I don’t think.” NYDailyNews

Expecting arrest, State Senator Huntley does not back out of race for re-election

State Senator Shirley Huntley warned supporters in Jamaica, Queens on Saturday that she expects to be indicted and arrested on Monday but would not discuss the specific allegations. Huntley’s announcement comes almost nine months after one of her aides was charged with stealing $30,000 earmarked for a non-profit group that Huntley created. Three others were also charged. NY1

150 trapped on JFK Airtrain

The Airtrain to Kennedy Airport was shut down for several hours last night and 150 people had to be rescued from one train, authorities said. The train got stuck between Jamaica Station and the airport at around 8:35 p.m., a Port Authority spokesman said. NYPost

Queens bee keeper accused of scam

The Queens man who kept 3 million bees in his back yard has been accused of diluting his honey with corn syrup and selling more than half a ton of it to a bakery. Yi Gin Chen, 58, of Corona — who needed cops Wednesday to help round up the insects after he lost control of his 45 hives — duped a local bakery out of about $6,000 by selling it 1,200 pounds of adulterated honey last month, said Andrew Cote of the New York Beekeepers Association. NYPost

A major mobile phone service provider is under fire from hundreds of Queens residents who say an authorized retailer scammed them for thousands — before closing up shop and ducking their calls.

A T-Mobile retailer, who sources identify as a South Asian man named “Raj” who suffers from schizophrenia, allegedly billed customers for several unauthorized lines that he tacked on to their accounts, and then pocketed the additional money when they directly gave him payments in cash.

“He’s from my country. He speaks my language and is even from my city. I trusted him. Now he ran away,” said Tarsem Singh, 47. “I can’t afford this. I paid these bills already. I feel like I’m going to die.”

Singh, a car service driver from Brooklyn, is one of hundreds of consumers who said they made direct payments to a T-Mobile preferred retailer who owns two Queens stores, at 138-40A 84th Drive in Briarwood and 134-11 Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park.

Singh said he kept receiving notifications from T-Mobile of unpaid bills totaling $1,400, even though he said the dealer at the stores assured him the invoices had been paid and the mistake would be fixed.

Instead, Singh said, the devious dealer, who owns and operates a company called Jagdeep Global Products, Inc., re-sent the payments twice to two wrong routing numbers.

Dozens of customers who united outside the shuttered Briarwood store last Thursday said the owner, and all his employees, have fled. The two Queens stores have been closed for at least two weeks, they said.

“The last three days, I haven’t been working because I’m looking for him,” Singh said. “I have no money in my pocket.”

A spokesperson for T-Mobile confirmed the fraudulent activity committed by the store owner and said the company apologizes to those affected and is taking “fast action” to correct the issues.

“We have worked together with the wholesaler responsible for the store and the owner has been replaced. Customers who feel they have been negatively impacted by their experience with either of these stores should contact T-Mobile customer service. T-Mobile will address each concern and will work to correct all related issues directly with our customers,” the spokesperson said.

The company would not disclose or confirm the name of the stores’ owner.

The 107th Precinct said there were no reports filed from the location, but said the issue could be a civil, not criminal, matter.

A swarm of customers said at least 300 people have been affected and are left struggling to pay off bills for services they never wanted.

Taliff Mohammed, 44, said he set up an account in January for three prepaid lines. Instead, the Briarwood T-Mobile vender signed him up for five contracted lines, he claims.

“When I brought it to their attention, they said it was a mistake on T-Mobile’s behalf and they said they would take care of it,” said the Ozone Park resident who also directly paid the vendor each month in cash. “I thought they were making the payments, but every other couple of weeks, my line used to get cut off. I would go back to them and it would be restored. They never paid the bills. They were sending checks that bounced.”

Mohammed said he heavily suspected fraud, but when he called T-Mobile, he said the company blew him off and said he was responsible for $1,271.92 in payments, including cancellation of lines the vendor added to his account without permission.

Harjeed Kaur, 45, of Briarwood said she was billed $2,000 for an account she already closed after vendors signed her up for five lines instead of the original three she asked for.

Calls to numbers listed for employees were either disconnected or went straight to voicemail. A number listed for Raj was “temporarily not in service.”

Brian Love said that when he found the flyer on his door, he knew right away it was odd and threw it away.

The South Ozone Park resident of 40 years said that advertisements like that of K Quality Corp. are frequent in the neighborhood.

The Bronx-based company, say locals, has been passing out flyers in the last few weeks that consumers and advocates say are not what they seem. The flyers advise residents that this is their second notice that the company is “holding an item of merchandise for you” and provides a four-digit reference number. Homeowners are advised to “call for delivery information” as “the merchandise is already pre-paid however, all merchandise must be claimed by the Special Notice Date.”

When one calls, however, it is actually a sales pitch for carpet cleaning services. The caller is offered either a free bottle of cleaning solution or one free carpet cleaning visit.

In exchange, the customer must refer others to the company’s services.

Claire Rosenzweig, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau New York, said consumers should be careful with these sorts of pitches. With carpet cleaning services especially, she said, a homeowner should be the one seeking out the service, and not the other way.

“When you’re hiring somebody to come into your home and clean your carpet,” she said, “you should be the initiator.”

The company currently has an “F” grade on the bureau’s web site, with three complaints. Two complaints are filed under “Problems with Product/Service;” the third is filed under “Advertising/Sales Issues.”

The “F” grade was mainly due to the three claims going unanswered by the company, the bureau said.

The company has also received several poor reviews online over the last four years. A review page for K Quality Corp. on citysearch.com lists several reviews where users accused – sometimes with violent language – the company of being fake or trying to scam users.

A representative from K Quality Corp. who answered the phone number provided on the ticket said there was no one at the company who would want to comment on the complaints.

A seething Queens judge walloped three members of a crooked Richmond Hill family yesterday, sending them upstate to serve a combined 418 years for a brazen immigration and real-estate scam. The mom, dad and daughter — dubbed “The Ramsundar Gang” by Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder — paid a shocking price for defrauding 19 families of $1.8 million over six years. Holder said his harsh sentences are nothing compared to the street justice the Ramsundar family would have faced back in their native Trinidad. Read More: New York Post

Body of man found in garbage pile fire outside Furniture Zone store

A man’s charred body was discovered in a burning pile of garbage in Brooklyn Thursday morning, police said. Firefighters who were called to a blaze on Hendrickson Street in Marine Park shortly before 4 a.m. made the grisly discovery. The body, believed to be that of a white male, was lying on top of several boxes and had been burned beyond recognition, sources said. The fire erupted at the side of a Furniture Zone store in an area frequented by vagrants, according to a taxi stand manager who works in the area. Read More: Daily News

Queens Residents Brace For 7 Train Disruptions

It’s going to be a long winter for the several thousand western Queens residents who rely on the 7 train to get around town on the weekends come January 23. That’s when an 11-week service shutdown begins, which means no trains on Saturdays and Sundays until the spring. “This is not a neighborhood that has five different places where you can use instead. We’re very isolated there,” said Queens resident Moitri Savard. The MTA says the work is essential to make critical infrastructure improvements and upgrade tracks and switches. It also needs to clean the tracks of muck it says have accumulated over the years. Read More: NY1

Elevators in building where Manhattan ad exec died had numerous problems

Elevator problems were an epidemic at the building where a Manhattan ad executive died in a horrific accident last month, newly revealed Buildings Department records show. City inspectors wrote 11 violations against 13 elevators at 285 Madison Avenue in the immediate aftermath of the December 14 tragedy that killed Suzanne Hart, 41, the public records show. Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the malfunction that killed the Brooklyn resident. The elevator that killed Hart so far has only been cited for a paperwork problem — it was among several elevators in the building that lacked a “certificate of compliance” with Buildings rules, the records show.Read More: New York Post

Pedestrian hit on FDR

A taxi passenger was struck by a minivan on the FDR last night after he impatiently hopped out of the cab in heavy traffic and darted across the roadway, police sources said. The unidentified victim was headed northbound near East 105th Street at around 11:30 p.m. when his cab hit congestion, the sources said. He left the vehicle and was struck in a southbound lane by a Toyota minivan. The victim was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital in unknown condition. Read More: New York Post

New arrests at Zuccotti

A gang of Occupy Wall Street protesters skulked back to the park yesterday, racking up three arrests. The 2:20 a.m. arrests came about seven hours after cops took down barricades that were erected when the group was evicted from the park on November 15. All three were charged with trespassing, and two were also hit with resisting arrest. Read More: New York Post

St. John’s loses to Marquette

For all the freshman mistakes and youthful inconsistency, St. John’s has played hard this season, rarely had its effort called into question. But last night it wasn’t so much questioned as flat-out criticized, the Red Storm folding in the second half of an 83-64 beating at the hands of No. 24 Marquette. The bowed heads and slumped shoulders and palpable frustration told the tale. The Red Storm (8-8, 2-3 Big East) have lost all six of their games against ranked teams, and with a chance at a breakthrough, what it got was a breakdown. It let Marquette shoot 67.7 percent to turn a second-half lead into a blowout loss.Read More: New York Post

A good Samaritan trying to help a drunken man off the Staten Island Railway tracks was hit by a train and critically injured Sunday, officials said. Steven Santiago, 39, came across a drunk who had jumped onto the tracks to retrieve his lost shoe in the New Dorp station about 1:30 a.m., relatives and cops said. When the drunk couldn’t get back onto the platform, Santiago jumped down to help him, officials said. “He is a great man who risked his life to save someone he doesn’t even know,” said the hero’s stunned brother Edwin Santiago, 42. A Tottenville-bound train barreled into the station with both men still on the tracks. The drunk somehow avoided being hit, but Steven Santiago was taken to Staten Island University Hospital North in critical condition after the train slammed into his head, police said. Read More: Daily News

Dallas Cowboys receiver Kevin Ogletree sits at bedside of brother who was shot in Queens

Dallas Cowboys player Kevin Ogletree was holding vigil Sunday at his big brother’s hospital bedside in Queens — praying he would survive being shot in the head by a pair of bicycling gunmen, a relative said. Calvin Ogletree, 25, remained in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital Sunday night, a day after he was shot in front of his luxury car rental shop on Linden Boulevard in St. Albans. “He’s a good kid; he has a good heart,” Calvin Ogletree’s uncle, Mark Ross, told the Daily News. Read More: Daily News

A 13-acre property in Whitestone is up for grabs — the largest single parcel of land for sale in Queens — and it’s attracting the attention of developers but also causing concern among community leaders. The former industrial site, located at 151-45 6th Road, was re-zoned for 52 one-family homes in 2008. The waterfront property comes with an additional five acres that is submerged underwater. Local leaders worried about overdevelopment in the community said they are concerned that a new owner could build many more homes or even multi-family dwellings. Read More: Daily News

Queens Broker Is Accused of Bringing Immigrants’ Ruin

For years, a self-made real estate magnate named Edul Ahmad personified the collective dreams of Richmond Hill, which is populated by many immigrants from Guyana, in South America. Ahmad drove a yellow Lamborghini, sponsored a cricket team and held white-glove parties at a lavish banquet hall that he owned. At a prominent intersection near the border of Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park, his smiling face looked down from a large billboard that promoted his real estate services. Many residents responded, taking out high-risk mortgages that they were told they could readily afford. In July, it all came crashing down. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Mr. Ahmad, charging him with masterminding a $50 million mortgage fraud that seemed to exemplify a nationwide phenomenon of celebrated immigrant brokers who were accused of preying on their own. Read More: New York Times

Straphangers Cope With Major MTA Weekend Repairs

With the Metropolitan Transportation Authority doing maintenance and construction this weekend, 17 of the city’s 22 subway lines — the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, A, C, D, E, F, G, J, N, Q, R and S lines — are experiencing some type service disruption. For many, it was confusing, annoying and downright frustrating. Some Q train riders in Downtown Brooklyn said on Saturday night that they had it with all the weekend service disruptions. “You got to get off at one particular point in Brooklyn, switch to the bus, get back on another train and it’s not the train that we need. It’s crazy,” said one rider. Read More: NY1

Fallout over failed Queens center

A longtime board member of a politically connected Queens nonprofit resigned yesterday after The Post reported that his publicly funded group owed the Port Authority $2.7 million over its stalled plan to create a new business center. The sudden resignation of Greater Jamaica Development Corp. board member Cruz Russell, whose $173,000-a-year day job is with the PA, came as the bistate agency announced an exhaustive review of its dealings with the nonprofit over the ailing JFK Corporate Square project. Read More: New York Post

New York coalition presents redisticting maps to boost Asian-American, Latino and African-American representation

A coalition of Asian-American, Latino and African-American groups has released a new set of redistricting maps it believes will give the city’s large ethnic populations a greater voice in future elections. The so-called Unity Maps are just one proposal being sent to state lawmakers as they decide how Senate, Assembly and congressional districts in the city should be redrawn to reflect changes in the 2010 Census. A state task force is slated to release its redistricting proposal in the next week or so. Read More: Daily News

Beyonce’s hospital mates baby-bumped

Pushy parents Beyoncé and Jay-Z installed bulletproof glass and burly bodyguards at the Upper East Side hospital where their diva daughter was just born — and even booted worried moms and dads out of the neonatal intensive-care unit. The fuming other parents at Lenox Hill Hospital said they were essentially put on “lockdown” so that the pampered songstress and her party could come and go as they pleased. “They just used the hospital like it was their own and nobody else mattered,” blasted new dad Neil Coulon, who said his efforts to see his premature, newborn twins in the neonatal ICU were disrupted at least four times by the arrival of Beyoncé and her tiny rap princess, Blue Ivy Carter, over the weekend. Read More: New York Post

Liu kicked in arrears

Embattled Comptroller John Liu, the city’s chief fiscal officer, is an accused deadbeat. Con Edison and the state Tax Department have taken separate legal action against his campaign committee, People for John Liu, for allegedly failing to pay nearly $1,500 in outstanding bills and taxes, The Post has learned. Con Ed is suing in Brooklyn Civil Court for about $500 in unpaid electric bills and has sicced a collection agency on him. The delinquency covers energy usage from a campaign office that Liu rented at 1424 Fulton Street in 2008 and 2009 when he was running for his current job, records show. Con Ed filed its initial suit October 14, 2009. A second suit was filed June 25, 2010, after the bills remained unpaid. Read More: New York Post

In 2006, a Queens state senator, Shirley L. Huntley, set up a nonprofit group called Parent Workshop that was intended to help parents navigate the inner workings of New York City’s school system. Then she began funneling state aid to the group, whose executives had close ties to her. But the money never helped a single family in the school system, prosecutors said Wednesday. They said four people with ties to Parent Workshop were involved in the theft of nearly $30,000 in state aid that Ms. Huntley had secured. Read More: New York Times

[UPDATE] Cops hunt Long Island City rape suspects

Police are looking for three suspects in connection with the ambush and rape of a woman in Long Island City. According to police, the 20-year-old victim — who is from the neighborhood — was walking along Vernon Boulevard and 10th Street in L.I.C. at approximately 3:45 a.m. on Sunday, December 4 when she was grabbed by two of the suspects and dragged to a nearby parking lot. There, she was held down between parked cars and raped by a third man. Read More: Queens Courier

Thirteen-year-old Joseph Santana stood in line wearing an oversized striped Mets jersey, clutching a cobalt blue baseball cap. He bobbed excitedly as the line grew shorter, anticipating his turn. When he reached the front of the line, he thrust the cap at former Mets relief pitcher John Franco, who scribbled his signature in black Sharpie marker across the brim. Read More: Queens Courier

Riders on the Q111 bus uneasy about their safety after fatal shooting

Rattled riders on the Queens bus line where a gunman shot two passengers last week said they are scared that violence may erupt again. After Demel Burton, 34, went on a shooting spree on the Q111 on Friday, straphangers said it underscored the fact that bus drivers can’t protect them. Read More: Daily News

Alec Baldwin apologizes to American Airlines passengers for plane outburst, but not to flight attendant

Actor Alec Baldwin apologized Wednesday to fellow passengers for the cell phone inspired tirade that got him bounced from an American Airlines flight. But the Hollywood hothead remains enraged with airline staff. “I learned a valuable lesson,” he said in a Huffington Post article. “I’ve learned to keep my phone off when the 1950s gym teacher is on duty.” Baldwin claimed that the incident was triggered after “one employee singled me out to put my phone away” while the delayed flight was waiting at the gate. Read More: Daily News

Deadly St. Albans ‘DWI’ crash

An allegedly boozed-up driver was arrested after he slammed into two cars in Queens yesterday, killing a 21-year-old man, cops said. Curtis Dean, 25, was cruising south in an Infiniti on 201st Street in St. Albans when he smashed into a Ford sedan just after 5 a.m., sending the Ford into a resident’s yard, cops said.Three victims were taken to Jamaica Hospital, including a passenger in the Ford who died there. Dean also allegedly plowed into a parked SUV. He was hit with a slew of charges, including manslaughter and DWI. Read More: New York Post

It’s almost like a game of chicken. Drivers speed through the stop sign on Vleigh Place in an attempt to beat cars with the right of way on 72nd Avenue. And while most make it through the intersection without a problem, neighborhood residents say they have witnessed a lot of accidents. “There have been about four accidents in the past maybe month and a half. People fly past the stop sign like it doesn’t exist,” said one resident. Read More: NY1

Long Island City Residents Urged To Stay Alert After Parking Lot Attack

Police say a woman in Queens was attacked by three men and raped earlier this week, and now residents and local leaders are urging others to stay alert. Watch the Video: NY1

Atomic Bomb Survivors Visit Flushing International High School

Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings visited the Flushing International High School to speak with students Wednesday. Watch the Video: NY1

Lame defense: Graffiti suspect: I’m crippled

An ex-cop standing trial on charges that he had revived his youthful graffiti-vandal compulsion was walking with a limp and appeared to be incapable of the dexterity required for the avocation, the arresting officer testified yesterday. Steven Weinberg admits that he once was the infamous “Neo” who, during the height of the city’s 1980s graffiti scourge, “bombed” trains and trestles with his bubble-lettered signature. But his lawyer, Patrick Broderick, said Weinberg, with an injured leg, couldn’t possibly make the climb required recently to spray-paint his tag on an overpass. Read More: New York Post